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About Me

I'm just your basic, all-American girl from Denver, Colorado, except for now, I live half way around the world in Japan.: ) I met my husband in university in Denver. College sweethearts. We have been happily married since 1997. And have been together for way longer, about 16 years total. He's originally from Osaka, Japan. We lived for a couple of years in Honolulu Hawaii, where our beautiful first born son, Branden was born. We were sent there by the company my husband works for. He works for an airline by the way. After living in Honolulu, my husband's employer, wanted us to move to Japan. We live in Chiba, Japan. Where we just built our dream home, an import "all American" house! Which means a big GE oven, big GE dishwasher and yes, central heating and central air conditioning, yay! We also have a beautiful second son, named Noah. Since my husband works for an airline like I said, we travel a lot and I really do appreciate the flight benefits. Other then that, I just love spending time with my family and friends and enjoy back yard BBQ's.

Sunday, June 05, 2016

Bits and Pieces. Two recent Costco Shopping trips. A lunch date. Dars Choco Mint Limited Edition. And what good new TV shows I have been enjoying lately...

This is going to be a quick and fun miscellaneous bits and pieces type post of just the day to day type stuff. Pics of my last 2 Costco shopping trips. A pic of a nice day out when we were having a quick bite to eat in Inzai (Chiba New Town) what I have been enjoying on TV lately and just you know... regular life stuff happening here. And this post will reflect that. Let's check out this pic together shall we? What did I buy this day at Costco in Japan. This Costco trip was May 26th. Lunch meat, I bought a great big pack of extra lean ham. 2 rotisserie chickens for 2 dinners. We had delicious rotisserie chicken sandwiches here one night and we had a traditional type roasted chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy and veggies and whatnot the other night. I bought a big container of choco cro (croissants with chocolate inside) the choco cro were for breakfasts. Like I said weekday breakfasts need to be quickquickquick. A couple chocolate cro, a steaming hard boiled egg sprinkled with salt and pepper and some yogurt cups in this morning madness is our usual type of breakfast. What else did I buy. Shredded cheese, this is so good and so cheap especially for 2 huge bags of it. Under the cheese is a big bag of potatoes. Tortilla chips for nachos. Costco store brand frozen pizzas a 4 pack these are so good. And I have 3 of these in my freezer even now. And also bought 2 packs of Japanese quick lunch things, my first time buying them at Costco but they were so cheap I had to get them.

10 corn dogs, I don't like these, Bran doesn't like these either but Noboru and Noah like these and they were 287 yen for 10, so I grabbed a pack of 10. And these Japanese pizzas, 2 packs of 3 pizzas so 6 pizzas total. Bran and Noah like these and again they were 287 yen for this pack and even though it was early morning and Costco just opened, so many Japanese mom's/ladies were snatching up the corn dogs and these pizzas so, I grabbed a pack too. I grabbed the 2nd to last pack of these pizzas. By the time I walked out of that aisle, they were sold out completely of both.

These pizzas are so good. The kids and I will usually have 1 or 2 for a weekend lunch here at home.

This pic was my cart pic and this trip was just last week. I took this pic June 2nd. I am so glad that I go to Costco so often now that when I do go, I barely need to buy much. I went there for pasta sauce because as you know Saturday I made chicken parmesan. I also bought the fresh cut up sliced mango a lot last summer. And we loved it. I have been checking for this... this past month and finally June 2nd, I saw it and I bought it. I love fresh fruit, my family loves fresh fruit. And luckily where I live in the countryside where fresh fruit is dirt cheap and also with Costco, I also get other types of fruit also at wholesale prices.

All this past weekend we 4 enjoyed this fresh sliced mango. 2 pounds of it.

Also June 2nd, with mango in my cooler in the trunk of my car. I went into Joyful Honda and bought beef for pot roast. I am making that today/this Monday. We also decided to have lunch there. Also the Crocs at our Costco for adults are all sold out. Noboru wanted a pair. He shouldn't have waited so long. @_@ However we were surprised Joyful Honda in Inzai had a wall of basic Crocs on sale for 1700 hundred yen or 1800 yen. He bought a pair there. They had not exactly the best color choices. Black, a brownish color, baby/ballet pink and a funky weird like Thomas blue type shade of blue. And one other color but it was weird. Noboru picked the brown pair. Best choice of what they had. We were under this tarp outside having lunch at Joyful Honda, enjoying the warm weather with nice cool breezes.

I had KFC. And Noboru had some Chinese dish called happosai. We both enjoyed our meals. And it was nice to enjoy eating outside that day.

Yep Crocs. He's not 100% in love with the color. He wanted a new pair of navy blue. But...they just had slim pickens that day. Oh well, these will be fine until he can find a navy blue color. So the 3 males of the house... all have new Summer Crocs 2016. And you know I have a new pair of flip flops (Havaianas) so we are getting summer ready bit by bit.

A pic of the nachos we had. These have cheese, beans chicken with taco seasoning, salsa, sour cream, lettuce. This is probably Noboru's favorite meal that I make these days. He gets different favorites often but this seems to be his top #1 currently. : )

You already know I went to the movies at Narita Humax movie theater with my 2 favorite best girl friends. So, technically I really don't have to say that twice. However I found these pics on my cell and I thought why not just put them here. I mean it's just 2 or 3 pics. It's not like they'll bother anyone these 3 little pics. Right. : ) This pic I snapped while me and my girl friends were in line chatting away. My friends are on the right of me and not in this pic. I'd never show a pic of my friends on here anyways. These people all in front of us... are all ladies. Because we went on "ladies day" It's just a much cheaper day to enjoy a movie in Japan if you are a lady. : ) Most movie theaters do have a ladies day. Also in this pic you can see some painted big murals on the upper part of the wall. This movie theater has the prettiest painted murals, of mostly American Hollywood actors and actresses. But there were 2 Japanese actors on there too. I think you can see, Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster and Brad Pitt in this shot/pic. : )

This movie theater has an excellent concession stand!!! They have delicious freshly popped everyday popcorn, caramel corn. They have nachos ( corn tortilla chips and cheese dip), they have french fries even!!! Freshly made when you order the french fries, not sitting there all day long gross french fries. This movie theater also has American concession stand prices. Super reasonable prices. Like...you would never mind buying popcorn and drinks here at all. Ikspiari also has a nice concession stand. And as I have mentioned on here countless times... my nearest movie theater to my town, the one in the small city nearest me has the worst concession stand ever. Like ever ever. Sorry to say that... but yes it is true. And their prices are like double of what this Narita concession stand sells their food for. Go figure. Anyway, they also have a delicious coffee selection in Narita. They had a apple pie coffee or something like that. Sounded a bit unusual. But, they have all sorts of selections. I think a cookies and cream coffee too. My 2 girl friends picked some delicious flavored coffees to enjoy while we watched our movie. And I picked this. Just a small buttered popcorn and a drink. The lady who checked me out, at the concession stand was so super nice.

My movie ticket from that day. And like I said we went and had an amazing lunch after wards. It is just so important to have good friends in this life. Friends I can laugh with, talk with, go to movies with, eat with. We share information. Japanese school information. We're sharing our lives. I am very interested in how their daughters are doing. I have watched them grow up and get older since I have known their daughters since yochien age and they are equally interested in Bran and Noah since they have known Bran since age 4 and Noah since he was like 1 years old. It's fun having good friends like this.

The sewing kits have arrived. All the kids in Noah's one and only 5th grade class received their sewing kits. Here is Noah's! The day the sewing kits were delivered to the kids. Noah came down the hill all smiles holding this sewing kit. The new sewing kits were wrapped all in plastic. Noah jumped in my car, "guess what came?" Of course I know what came. : ) But I said..."what came?" He said "my sewing kit!" "Oh holy cow...how cool", I said!!! : ) The colors on this are really cool. Noah is very happy with his Adidas sewing kit with bright lime green trim.

Everything needed a name sticker. So, I put name stickers on everything! This sewing kit is now living in Noah's locker outside Noah's 5th grade classroom. : )

These are so good and limited edition here in Japan! These are available at most conbini's (convenience stores) I buy mine at 7-11. The taste way better than the choco mint Kits Kats. I give the chocolate mint Kit Kat's a 7 out of 10. But these get a 9 out of 10. These taste like those Andes chocolate mints we sell in the US. But they have a few bits of crunchy stuff. It's not a lot of crunch but I wish they wouldn't have added those few bits of crunch to it. It sort of feels like there are a few egg shells in there. But they say it's some crunchy mint or something. It would have gotten a 10 out of 10 if those crunchy bits were not there. But yes this is pretty good though. Flavor is on point with these ones. And the chocolate amount you get in this box is really generous. Just know there will be like 3 tiny egg shell type crunchy pieces per chocolate square and other then that it's perfect. And no it's not egg shell pieces just giving you an idea of the texture. But definitely if you are in Japan grab these Dars chocolate mints. These are really good.: )

I haven't mentioned what I have been watching on TV lately. Law and Order SVU this season ended. It ended so good and I can't wait for next season. A lot of my favorite shows have ended for the season (The Blacklist, Supergirl, Lucifer, Damien the TV series etc). So, what am I currently watching and enjoying? Well last week they aired the new Roots miniseries on American cable. I really wanted to catch this reboot of Roots! What did I think? It was amazing! This was such an updated remake of the original. The actors in this wow! Truly this was 2 thumbs way way up for me! I couldn't wait to watch it last week. It was broken down into 4 parts and for 4 nights last week, I tuned in and watched. I also have been watching the new season of some fluff reality show called Arranged. I watched last season and I really liked it and I am really liking this new season with new people as well. I also watched last week an episode of the new show called Wayward Pines. And the Scream TV series on MTV is back again for their 2nd season...it just started last week and I watched the first episode and will be watching it again this season too. Anyway that's enough from me for now.

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About the Blog

This blog was started for everybody I care about and love back home, it sorta helps my family and friends feel more connected to me and my life. It's also a place to make new friendships, support one another, laugh our butts off at times, and just be kind to one another and hang out! So please join me, while I try living my life in Japan, all the good, the bad and yes even the embarrassing blunders that I will probably be making along the way! : )